The eagle-eyed folks at Android Community have spotted a new version of the Android Market running on the Nexus S. It looks remarkably similar to Honeycomb’s version of the Market, as seen on the Motorola Xoom. Of course, the Nexus S currently runs Gingerbread, and was indeed the first smarthphone to do so.

It’s not clear if the new Market will come with a simple Gingerbread update, or if we’ll have to wait for the full Ice Cream Sandwich love-in.

Google has also been discussing the fast-paced Android “ecosystem” (oh, how we love that term). The Open Handset Alliance will draw up new guidelines on how long we’ll have to wait for platform updates once they become available. Sounds good to me, with my Frodo-running HTC Desire HD.

The founding partners, namely Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T, have also announced that new devices will receive updates for 18 months from first release. Er, “as long as the hardware allows.”